When creating a username, can I target specific characters from the user's names?

Question

Example: If a user has a ' in theirname: Fred J O'neal. Normally the username is set as %lastname:lower,4%%firstname:lower,3%%initials:lower% Problem is o'nefrej would be the result. I'm not sure if i can target specific characters to ignore the '. I would like to set it to oneafrej to be the result. if (($FN.substring(1,1) -eq '-') -or ($FN.Substring(1,1) -eq "'")) { $Context.LogMessage("%firstname% %initials% %lastname% has a hyphen or single quote at the second character in the first name", "Information") $username = #this is what I'm not sure how to do?

Comments

Hello,

For us to help you with a solution, please, specify what should be done in case such characters are present in the first name and/or last name. Should such characters just be ignored when forming usernames?

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So in the example I gave you The user is built by using first four of last name first 3 of first name and the initial which will be one character. The name is Fred J O'neal. Instead of o'nefrej I want the 1 character of the last name, skip the second character which is the ' use the next 3 after the ' so it would end up with oneafrej. Whith this one example I can script out the other use cases. so instead of $username = %lastname:lower,4%%firstname:lower,3%%initials:lower% It should be $username = ????? The only two characters that are allowed are - for hyphenated names or ' for names like O'neal etc.

Answer 1

Hello,

To achieve the desired, you need to first remove the unwanted characters from the values and then extract the required number of characters. Here is a script on how to do that:

$unwantedCharacters = @("'", " ") # TODO: modify me

function ReplaceCharacters ($value, $characters)
{
    foreach ($character in $characters)
    {
        $value = $value.Replace($character, "")
    }
    return, $value
}

$firstName = ReplaceCharacters "%firstname:lower%" $unwantedCharacters
$lastName = ReplaceCharacters "%lastname:lower%" $unwantedCharacters
$initials = ReplaceCharacters "%initials:lower%" $unwantedCharacters

$username = $firstName.SubString(0, 4) + $lastName.SubString(0, 3) + $initials

Comments

I actually resolved this a different way. I created a variable that picks up the caracters after the special. $Context.LogMessage("%firstname% %initials% %lastname% has a hyphen or single quote at the second character in the last name", "Information")

#Variable to set up skipping the - or '
$NFN = $LN.Substring(2,3).ToLower() 
$username = "%lastname:lower,1%"+$NFN+"%firstname:lower,3%%initials:lower%"

---

Hello,

First of all, it will not work if there is an unwanted character in the first name or initials. Also, it will work only if the unwanted character is second in the last name. The approach we suggested is more flexible, but if your script meets your needs, it should work fine.